Military Update: DOD, VA take lead in health-record sharing

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Military Update: DOD, VA take lead in health-record sharing
By Tom Philpott, Special to Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, November 29, 2008

Dr. Ross Fletcher, chief of staff of the VA Medical Center in Washington D.C., asked a recent patient, a war veteran, how many times he had been exposed to the blast of an improvised explosive device. Answer: about 11.

“This particular one,” Fletcher said, “had ruptured his tympanic membrane and also caused -- not severe but some --traumatic brain injury.”

To review the veteran’s medical history, Fletcher didn’t need to consult a bulky file of paper documents. On his computer screen was VA’s medical record system and the display for this patient showed a small blue flag in the upper right corner with the words “Remote Data Available.”

With a click, Fletcher called up an extensive list of DoD reports on the patient. The links on allergies and pharmaceutical history, including drugs dispensed recently at nearby Walter Reed Army Medical Center, had been delivered to VA as “computable data.” That meant Fletcher would be warned by the system if he prescribed a drug that would put the patient at risk.

Other DoD information viewable by Fletcher included military inpatient discharge summaries, procedures performed, outpatient encounters, patient vital signs, lab test results, notes on medical problems, family history, social history and even clinical data that had been gathered in the war theater.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=59114